


Let Your Fire Be Mercy To Me

by objectlesson



Category: Cars (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Camping, Confessions, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Humanized Cars, Kissing, M/M, RV sex, Romance, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18892894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Lightning gets stuck with the shitty tent. Doc has an RV.





	Let Your Fire Be Mercy To Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is sappy and romantic, a BALM for you all since the last AND next chapter of Sweet Morphine are miserable. Adapted from a Drabble on tumblr, the prompt was the first line <3 unbetaed, sorry for any typos!

“Come on, give me one good reason not to jump in the lake,” Lightning demands, holding his empty beer bottle up as if toasting the night. He’s flushed and a little drunk, grinning face cast in a flickering light from the fire, and you are so terribly in love with him in this moment (and every moment) that you have to look away. There’s nothing but darkness and trees behind you, and you stare into the shadowed maze of it while he asks again, “ _One_ good reason. Otherwise, m’getting naked and jumping in.” 

“It’s freezing cold,” Sarge offers. “And dark. And you won’t be able to see what you’re jumping into, there might be a pitchfork in the water, waiting for you.” 

“It’s a _campsite,”_ Lightning counters. “And there were plenty of folks swimming when we got here. They wouldn’t have pitchfork infested waters at a _campsite._ Next reason.” 

“Leeches!” Mater offers, even though Mater was the one who dared him to jump into the lake in the first place. 

“Leeches are nothing to be afraid of,” Fillmore says. “They’re natural. Just like you and me. It’s their home.” 

“Ok, Leeches are a slightly better reason,” Lightning says, ignoring Fillmore’s defense as he leans towards the cooler to grab another beer. You don’t mean to but your gaze somehow ends sweeping back to him, following the angle of his wrist as he pops the tab, foam rising and sluicing out over his fingers because all the carbonated drinks are still shaken up from the drive down the dirt road to this campsite. “But m’not convinced. Like, if there are no pitchforks there are probably no leeches either. This is a nice place. We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re drunk, and you might hit your head,” Sarge grumbles, but Lightning isn’t looking at him, he’s looking at you so suddenly, blue eyes flashing and lovely across the fire. He’s sitting opposite of you, only because you deliberately positioned yourself away from him because sitting next to Lightning McQueen when he’s drinking always results in compromising positions. He’s a cuddly drunk, and he thinks it annoys you when he gets all in your space so he does it _relentlessly_. 

The truth is that it doesn’t annoy you, it terrifies you. You’re not strong enough to withstand him touching you so much, one day you’re gonna crack, you’re going to kiss him, you’re going to fall to your knees from a heart attack, from something worse, a lapse in judgement, maybe. “Doc,” he says, nodding to you. “You’re awfully quiet over there, what do _you_ think? You always have something to say about my safety or whatever.” 

“Boy,” you say, shaking your head. “M’your crew chief, not your dad. You’re a grown up. Do what you want,” you tell him, guarding the messy cocktail of feeling in your chest with an iron grip. 

He grins at you and you shake your head, corners of your mouth twisting up reflexively because it’s hard to look at his smile without returning it. It’s such a big, beautiful, open thing, like a wound. You want to spend the rest of your life kissing it, thumbing over it, but he’s straight and nearly thirty years younger than you, so you’re gonna have to settle for staring at it, instead. “You hear that? If _Doc_ doesn’t think it’s a bad idea, it’s not a bad idea. So. Last one to the lake sleeps in the shitty tent!” He whoops before standing, clumsily shucking his shirt and jeans, and bolting towards the dock, Mater only a few feet behind him, cackling. 

You hear the crash of two bodies hitting the water before both of them surface, screaming about how cold it is. “Youth,” Fillmore says wistfully, looping his arm around Sarge’s neck and kissing him on the cheek. Sarge is still grumbling about pitchforks, and you are still staring decidedly at the flames, the image of his golden skin lit in flickering orange burnt into your retinas, even though you tried so hard not to look directly into the sun. 

“M’going to bed,” you announce, knees popping as you stand unsteadily. You hate spending time with Fillmore and Sarge sometimes, they’re so _happy_ and _solid_ and it just reminds you of how fucking lonely you are, how pathetic it is you’ve fallen in love with some terrifically unattainable and impossible boy like Lightning McQueen. “I’ll leave you two to babysit.” 

—-

 

There was only one condition for you coming on this camping trip Lightning’s been bugging you about for months, and that was getting to sleep in an RV while the rest of them stayed in tents. You’re too old to be roughing it, and on top of that, you _need_ space away from him if you’re gonna survive this weekend. 

He’s too much for you to endure on most days, let alone out outside the track, outside Radiator Springs, out in _nature_ where he gets wild and boyish and relaxed, laughing too much while he wears not enough clothing. You can at least lock yourself into your RV when you need to, this way. Splash cold water on your face and drink a finger of whiskey to steady your hands, which tend to shake if he’s touching you too much, if he’s walking around shirtless. 

That’s why it’s absolutely _unacceptable_ that an hour or so after you retire, he’s knocking on the RV’s screen door, knuckles rapping even after you ignore him. When you open up, he’s dripping and wearing nothing but boxers and a towel. “What in the hell,” you groan, rubbing at the bridge of your nose with thumb and forefinger, hands already beginning to shake. “Kid. I’m trying to actually _sleep_.” 

“Um, so am _I,”_ he mumbles through chattering teeth, shouldering his way inside, cold wet skin brushing your arm, making you jump. “But I can’t, because m’sleeping in the shitty tent because Mater is like, preternaturally good at doing weird shit like jumping into lakes?” 

“Oh, I got it. You lost the race, like a rookie,” you grumble, watching him collapse onto the vinyl booth-seat built into the side of the RV, shivering, usually blonde hair dark with water and plastered on his forehead. You wish you could brush it away with your thumb, wrap him in a quilt and warm him up with your arms, but you can’t. So instead you just stand here in your PJ pants feeling exposed, blinking at him. 

“Yeah, and it’s freezing, and that thing doesn’t even stay popped,” he says, looking up at you with wide pleading eyes. “So, I thought I’d ask if you’d let me sleep in here.” 

You sigh, rubbing your face, covering your eyes because if you see him smile, you’re going to say yes, you’re going to cave to his whims. “There’s no extra bed,” you remind him. 

“There’s enough room in that bed for both of us, right?” he asks, looking past you to the bed tucked into the 5th wheel. “I don’t mind.” 

“Shit. I do,” you grind out, stomach suddenly tight and alive with fear, with longing. You try not to imagine things like sharing a bed with Lightning McQueen; it feels dirty and painful and unfair to both of you, even more so than fantasies about fucking him, putting him up against a wall. But then he says shit like this, and _forces_ you to imagine it. His chest rising and falling an arm’s width away, his hair on your pillow. Even his spine nestled against your chest, if he let you get that close. It makes you ache. “You take the bed,” you decide, teeth grit. “I’ll sleep out here, I can put a mat on the —“

“No! Fuck, no, no. You literally brought the RV so you _wouldn’t_ have to sleep on the ground, I’ll—this was a stupid idea, m’sorry. I’ll take the shitty tent, s’my _own_ fault I’m sleeping in it anyway.” 

And he looks so fucking cold and disappointed and self-deprecating about this all as he stands up something in your cracks, overrides your better judgement. Plus, you’re like a planet stuck in orbit: you want to be near him always, even if it hurts, even if it kills you. You’ll stay on path, come meteor or space storm. “Stop,” you say, grabbing his arm, steering him towards the 5th wheel. “Fine, you can sleep here. But if you steal the blankets, I’m kicking your ass out.” 

He sags in relief, head lolling back to expose the sharp ripple of his Adam’s apple, where you have imagined tracing with your finger tips, your mouth, too many times to count. “Thanks,” he says, toweling his hair, getting water everywhere, grinning wide and white. “This is why I love you.” 

You grind your teeth, nothing to say that won’t flay you open, expose your heart for him to needle into. 

—

Lying on the too-narrow mattress, you realize with stark clarity you’re not sleeping tonight. You might not even _live_ to see the morning. You lay on your back, stock still, staring at the ceiling of the 5th wheel above you, too aware of the heat of his body lying so close, his exhalations warm and minty against your neck. He managed to brush his teeth before coming over here soaking wet, and that shouldn’t be so goddamned heartbreaking and endearing, but he’s ruined you so the mere idea of it makes you want to cry. Your chest is tight as he mumbles, “thanks, again, old man. Not just for letting me stay, but also like. Coming at all. I know this isn’t really your thing. Not really my thing, either, but Mater would have been _so_ bummed if I bailed. You know, best friend duties and all that.” 

“You kids having a good time? Camping with a bunch of old queers?” you ask him, heart clenching at how bitter your voice comes out. You don't mean it to, you’ve just never gotten used to calling yourself gay. It’s easier to spit other, crueler words out like they’re poison. 

“Yeah, s’been a blast, we love you guys,” he slurs, voice oddly soft in the dark. There’s a moment of loaded silence between you, when you try hard to listen to the crickets outside, _anything_ but his breathing, your own terrified heartbeat, the repetition in your head of that word _love_ he keeps throwing around. “Hey Doc,” he murmurs after a pause, mattress creaking under him as he restlessly shifts his weight. “You know. I kissed a guy once. Or, he kissed me, I guess. But. I kissed back.” 

So suddenly your ears are ringing, your cheeks are impossibly hot. If he didn’t notice the pounding of your heart before, he certainly must now, it’s deafening. “Why are you telling me this?” you snap, making a fist in the top-sheet to keep your hands from doing something worse. 

“I dunno. You talk about me like I’m so different from you and Sarge’n’Fillmore. But. I guess that’s because you don’t _know,_ that I’m not. So I’m letting you know.”

He is different from you. You know it, but it’s not your place to tell him, to reach for him in the night and shake him, to say _you’ve kissed a man once but you don’t live in the shadows yearning for mens’ kisses. You are not like me._

Instead you shut your eyes and ask, “did you like it?” because you don’t _believe him,_ you cannot fathom a version of Lightning McQueen that isn’t untouchably, impossibly remote. Otherwise, you will be forced to rethink your world, your staunchest, most self-protective convictions. You’ll feel _hope,_ and you never allow yourself to feel such a thing. 

“Not really,” he admits, and a strange sort of relief washes over you, allows you to exhale as the lick of hope extinguishes like a flame. “Not because he was a guy, though. It was like, a weird situation. At a party, we were both drunk, he was a stranger. I let it happen because I’d always been curious but like—he wasn’t someone I _wanted_ to kiss. Bet I’d like it, though. If it was a guy I wanted, thought about like that.” 

“Jesus,” you say, rubbing your fingers into your closed eyelids until you see stars, shifting away from him in the bed, the heat of his body too infernally close, like he’s pressing tentatively closer. Maybe he is. You can’t consider that possibility though, you cannot exist in a world where Lightning McQueen is lying in your bed, telling you he’d always been _curious_ about kissing _men._

 _Lead me not into temptation_ you repeat on a loop in your head, and it’s not until the words have lost all meaning and become a jumble of sounds that you recall they’re from a prayer. He has you praying. 

The silence has become heavy and suffocating, and you wonder if he’s fallen asleep, or if he's just _realized_ how terribly confusing he’s being and he’s keeping quiet, planning an escape route, an apology so he can leave you here to steep in your loneliness, hold your heart in your hand and tighten your fist until there’s no room in the ventricles for him to reside. You count your breaths until they stop all together, because he’s reaching out and laying his trembling fingers on your arm in the dark, so gentle you think you’re imagining it for a moment. But it remains, he remains, so you have to reckon with the fact Lightning McQueen is touching your skin. 

 

“Doc,” he says quietly. “You can tell me to fuck right off, if m’wrong. You can kick me out and I’ll never talk about it again. But, I've got to—got to say it, got to tell you, just— in case, I guess.” 

_In case of what?_ You think frantically, stomach in such convoluted knots you feel ill, face wet and hot with tears you don’t remember shedding. “Say it,” you grind out, laying a tremulous hand over your mouth as if to keep from confessing before he does. “Just get it out, kid.” 

He shifts closer, sucks in a shuddering breath and blurts, “Just that—nothing else in the whole world feels better than making you proud. Happy. And—” 

“Stop,” you say, shaking your head, not ready, not _ready_. You don't want to know he’s seen through your walls, that he’s _witnessed_ all you feel for him, that you've failed at hiding it and he knows your interior and all its ugly, base yearning _. “_ I don't want this if you’re only doing it because you think it’s what I want. I don’t—”

“Doc,” he breathes, smoothing his hand up your arm before bracing it on the mattress above your shoulder so he can roll on top of you, breath minty-sweet as it huffs out over the flattened line of your mouth. He’s heavier than you would have thought, and despite _all_ efforts to keep your hands locked at your sides, they move to his hips against your will, gripping him tight and hungry. “I just want to kiss you. I want to make you feel good. I want it so bad I can’t _think_ most of the time, couldn’t stand the idea of a weekend away from you, so I begged you to come,” he whispers, voice ripping out of him all breath, rough and hungry as you suck it up, thumbs digging into his sides. “Shove me off if you don’t want it too, but—“ he stops talking the second you pull him towards you, not to kiss him but to hold him, to urge him to give you his full weight, to feel the insistent crush of his body to your chest so you know he's _real,_ this is real.

His heartbeat knocks up against yours and he gasps into your neck, and this must be heaven, you must have died out there in the endless black of the forest, because Lightning McQueen is trembling in your arms. 

You press your face into his hair and inhale. He smells like wood smoke, like fire, and his mouth is an open slick on your throat and you can’t stand it a second longer. You cup his cheek gently and turn his lips towards yours to kiss. 

This is the moment you realize for certain you’re not dreaming. In all your dreams of him, he’s terrified, he’s resisting you at the same time he’s pulling you in. Some times he strikes you, other times he sobs. Every time it’s brief, and it hurts, but you have him under your hands for a moment before something breaks, and he disappears in a gust of wind. 

But that’s not how Lightning McQueen kisses you now. 

His lips are unbearably soft and so is the press of his mouth, everything sweet, tender, slow, savoring. He kisses like he’s telling you a secret, like he’s worried _you_ might disappear, your lips whispering together and his breath coming out in trembling, uncertain gales, noses bumping, his hands on your cheeks, thumbs gentle as they sweep beneath your closed eyes. “Fuck,” he murmurs, pulling back so there’s only enough room for his gasp. “ _Fuck.”_

 _“_ You ok?” You ask, palming up the shift of his shoulder blade in disbelief. “You like it this time? Kissing a man?” 

He laughs, breath ghosting against your mouth as his lips brush yours. “Love it. Love you,” he confesses, hands rubbing down your sides, up your chest, into your hair like there's not an inch of you he hasn’t dreamed of touching. “Have for a long time.” 

It’s what makes you lick into his mouth to taste him, that word _love,_ cutting through you twice like rapidly fired arrows, one right after the other. He tastes like heaven, like salt, like _tears_ , yours and his, and he groans into your mouth before opening his up to you. 

It’s the smile you’ve hungered for, longed for. Right there, for you to lick. Your tongue flicks against his teeth and he sucks it into his mouth desperately, hips grinding against yours in messy abandon now that you’re giving him everything what he wants. “God,” you murmur, making a fist in his hair, holding him steady. “This real? Are you real?” you ask, rolling him onto his back, hands everywhere. You can’t believe it, but he’s here, he’s solid, his eyes are half-lidded and flashing and you can smell the bite of his sweat. 

He kisses you hard, lips swollen and sweet and spit slick. “Yeah, promise, promise,” he breathes, mouthing down your throat, getting his hands under your shirt and touching your stomach with gentle fingers. You have never been touched like this, in the whole of your life. Careful but fearless, tender but certain. Equal parts awe and reverence. “Doc. Lemme make you feel good, lemme suck your cock,” he begs, rubbing his cheek over your pounding heart. “ _Please.”_

You’re not going to stop him, not now when you’ve been whittled to dust and hunger, all logic lost to his kisses. “Ok,” you breathe, carding a hand through his hair. “You can—whatever you want, baby.” It’s easy to call him that, you think of him that way in your head anyway, this lost young thing, yours to shape and protect. But hearing it _does_ something to him, makes him tremble and buck and whine as he mouths down your chest, pushing your shirt up to inhale from your skin, touch turning desperate and greedy. 

It’s surreal, but you settle into the madness anyway. You’re going to stay here, even of it’s a dream, a parallel universe, and mistake. Petting the back of his neck as he works your PJ pants down your hips, kissing each new strip of skin reveled, slow and reverent. You guide him closer, and before he takes you into his mouth he just presses his face there between your thighs, breath labored, tremulous. “Tell me if it’s good,” he murmurs, lips sweet as they ghost up your length, touch teasing, aimless. “Want it to be good.” 

“Kid, It’s already good,” you promise, tangling your fingers into his hair, which is oily, sweat-damp, soft. “So good. Best thing I ever felt.” 

He keens before he licks, before he sucks. He’s got the wettest mouth and you _knew_ he would, _thought_ about it shamefully when you watched him chug water after practice runs, fit his lips around the neck of a beer bottle and throw it back. The reality is even better around your cock though, messy and desperate and graceless, his tongue laving, his eyes shut tight, his fingers digging into your thighs. 

He’s never sucked cock before, you know because you can feel his gag reflex working in muffled, startled coughs, his teeth nudging up against you in intervals. “Take your time, s’ok, baby” you tell him, thumbing behind his ear, hips pumping reflexively. “Sweet boy, god. So good, m’not going anywhere, you can slow down.” 

He pulls off, gasping. “You can show me—you can fuck my mouth. M’yours. I’m in fucking _heaven_ I’ll stay here however long you need me, whatever it takes, all night. Just—take me, put me where you want me,” he begs, inhaling from you, scrubbing his cheek into your thigh. “Want to swallow your come, Doc.” 

Your name comes out rough and snagged, his voice so low it hooks into your gut deep, makes your cock flex. _God,_ you never let yourself even _imagine_ he could be like this, so sweet, so eager, so unafraid. It keeps making your throat tight with ragged sobs. You curse and guide him back, palm splayed wide on the back of his skull, firm but gentle.

He moans as he sucks, and you can hardly believe it, how desperate he is, rutting against the bed, dirtier than your dirtiest fantasies of him. “Stay there, baby, with your sweet mouth, gonna come for you, just—keep sucking.” 

He groans around you, tongue sloppy, wet. Time passes fluid and messy, slow like molasses but with missing moments like being drunk, everything stuttering by in tattered fractals, his hair sifting between your fingers, his palms hot and flush against your quads. He’s breathing harsh and labored, drooling into your pubic hair, licking messy and inexpertly but _so,_ so fucking _good,_ so eager. 

When you come you see static, back arched, breath lost as he cries out and chokes, swallows. 

It’s a long time before the haze of sensation clears, but he kisses you through it. Kisses your twitching cock, your stomach, your sternum, your throat, your collar bones, leaving nothing untouched. You wondered how you lives seventy whole years without this, without having a boy count your ribs with his lips, lashes fluttering against your skin. You wondered if you _did_ live, or if your life started right now, with you brittle and grey and broken but _kissed._

He rubs his cheek against yours, his breath smelling like your come. When you lick into his mouth it’s bitter, and all, _all_ you want is to taste him in return, when you can _move_ again, when you can do more than gasp and choke up and wonder how in the hell any of this can be happening. “Was I good?” he asks, pressing his nose into your pulse. 

You pet his cheeks, his jaw, fingers trembling and breath weak and rough as you laugh. “Better than good. An angel. A dream—fuck, no, better than my dreams.” 

“So, you thought about it, before tonight?” he asks earnestly, rolling onto his back and pulling you with him. “About me, like this?” 

You laugh, shaking your head at the notion you’ve thought about anything _but_ him, since he found you in the desert and wrecked your road. 

“About you, like this,” you admit, spreading his thighs and rubbing your palm up the length of his cock, hard and wet in his boxers. “And one hundred other ways. On your stomach. On your knees. In my bed. Just—waking up with you. Done nothing but love you since you came to town, boy.” 

He smiles, and you fold your hand over it, quiet him, kiss his eyelids while he whimpers into your skin. He smells like smoke and lake water and your come, your cologne, your spit, and this is more than you ever hoped to have from Lightning McQueen, so you’re going to drink your fill. You’re going to take until he won’t let you, anymore, gonna chase and drown in every one of those dreams. 

—-

It takes the whole night, for either of you to get tired of touching the other. 

It’s not until dawn is peeking over the horizon and the campsite is bathed in an eerie grey light that your eyes get heavy, your lips slow to kiss him back. He’s nodding off on your chest and your arm is around his shoulder and your face smells like the dark, musky, perfect crack of his ass and you’ve tasted every inch of him and it’s not enough, not nearly, but you think he’s just as lost to this as you are, so. There will be other nights, other afternoons. You’ll spend the rest of your life kissing his smile, if he lets you. 

Right now you drift in and out of almost sleep, smelling his hair. “Hey Doc?” he murmurs at some point, threading his fingers through the hair on your chest. 

“Hm?” you ask, nudging into him, kissing his temple slow and lazy. “What?” 

“You know, the race?” he mumbles, and you’re pretty sure he’s asleep, so you smile, so stupid-happy he’s here, so _astounded_ you were wrong about everything. “What race, baby? Go to sleep. Sun’s up.” 

“No, the race—-the race to the dock. Last night, with Mater. I won it, I just—I planned the whole thing, getting the shitty tent, so I could find you here, come on to you. If you said no, I didn’t want it to happen in Radiator Springs, is that weird?” he says, eyes still closed as he rubs his cheek into your pectoral. You’re hearing every word he’s saying but you can’t string them together, so you just rub a rough palm up his ribcage, pull him closer. 

“S’not weird,” you tell him, even though you don’t have any fucking idea what he’s going on about. “Love you so much.” 

You feel his smile against your skin, and your heart picks up under his cheek. “Love you too, old man.” He's quiet for a moment but then he’s restless again, like he’s really got to make you understand. So you open your eyes, you listen. “I just. I don't want you to think I’d ever lose a race, even a foot-race in the dark with Mater. I won, I got there first. I just took the shitty tent anyway so I’d have an excuse to crawl into your bed.” 

It comes together there in the cold glare of dawn, and your eyes prickle, get wet and hot for the hundredth time. You are so terribly in love with him in this moment (and every moment), it feels like your chest could rupture with the force of it. “You won for me, baby. Always winning for me,” you rumble, touching his hair.

He nods and smiles and kisses you as the sun rises, and you rub your thumb over the upturned corners of his mouth. 


End file.
